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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27132671">Prompt 17: Embarrassing secret</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaknitsalot/pseuds/emmaknitsalot'>emmaknitsalot</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Flufftober 2020 [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Alec Lightwood Has a Hobby, Clary Fray Deserves Nice Things, Fluff, Flufftober 2020, Gen, Isabelle Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Jace Wayland Deserves Nice Things, Knitting, M/M, Magnus Bane Deserves Nice Things, Prompt Fill</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:55:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,609</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27132671</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaknitsalot/pseuds/emmaknitsalot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"He liked the slow repetitiveness of it, the rhythmic clacking of the needles, and the texture of the wool as it dragged through his fingers."</p>
<p>Or, Alec doesn't really try to hide it anymore.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Flufftober 2020 [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1961794</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>121</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Prompt 17: Embarrassing secret</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Flufftober 2020 prompts found at vex-bittys dot tumblr dot com.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Alexander Lightwood was 14 years old when he taught himself to knit. His fingers were clumsy at first, and he couldn’t make the stitches stay on the long metal needles. They were so loose they’d just fall right off. Alec was determined though, and after a few weeks, he got the hang of casting on his stitches and knitting a few rows. </p>
<p>His first project was a huge long vaguely rectangular…thing. He’d started out with 34 stitches and somehow ended up with 73, but that was okay. It was full of holes and loose bits and tight bits and he slept with it under his pillow for a month before carefully folding it and storing it away in his wardrobe.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div>He hadn’t really set out to make anything in particular. He liked the slow repetitiveness of it, the rhythmic clacking of the needles, and the texture of the wool as it dragged through his fingers. It quieted his mind in the same way as target practice with his arrows did. He was much better with a bow and arrow, though that could be attributed to the hours of daily training whereas he was only able to knit for a few minutes here and there in the dead of night when he was truly alone.<p>Hobbies were frivolous, and frivolity wasn’t permitted in the Institute.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div>Alec was determined though, and he soon graduated from misshapen lumps of wool to an evenly stitched knitted square. He thought it looked about the same size as some of the cushions scattered across Izzy’s bed, and one day when she was off doing her training he snuck in and checked—it was.<p>He knitted another square, almost exactly the same size, sewed them together and squeezed one of the cushions inside before sewing the last edge shut. </p>
<p>He peeked into Izzy’s room later that night after she’d gone to sleep and smiled to see her starfished face down on her bed, his knitted cushion stuffed under her arm like it was a teddy bear.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div>Alec was limited to the yarn he could find at thrift stores. He had very quickly learned that good yarn cost a lot of money, money that he just didn’t have. And the ladies in the yarn stores always looked at him a bit sideways, like they were expecting him to steal the stock straight off the shelves.<p>(It was a bit odd that a teenage boy would come into a craft store, he supposed).</p>
<p>One day after he’d been knitting for a few years, he found the jackpot in a new-to-him thrift shop. A plastic container full of brand new balls of wool, real wool, in all the colours of the rainbow. He seized it and went to the counter to pay before he could think too hard about how he was going to hide it when he got home. He ducked into an alley after leaving the shop and quickly shoved all the wool into his backpack—there were twelve balls of different colours—and hid the bag from view using a rune. </p>
<p>He found something called a ‘sampler blanket’ while surfing the internet on his phone for ideas for what to make with his new yarn. It appealed to him because it was made up of lots of squares sewn together in a patchwork, all with a different type of pattern on them. He figured he could use it to practice—Alec was nothing if not diligent—before he decided he was ready to make something more complicated, like a sweater. Or a winter hat.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div>Jace always, <i>always</i> complained about the cold and how he was sure that this was the patrol his toes finally succumbed to frostbite.<p>He was a bigger drama queen than Alec.</p>
<p>This year Alec was prepared. He’d found a thick but soft forest green coloured yarn at his favourite thrift shop and had been practising knitting socks all summer. He finally managed to turn the heel without leaving big gaping holes in the gusset and he was embarrassingly excited about it. Because what was the point of a sock if it had holes in it without being worn yet? </p>
<p>He carefully put Jace’s new socks in amongst his underwear when he wasn’t looking and he smiled a small proud smile when he saw his best friend wearing those socks more often than not.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div>He wasn’t really trying to keep it hidden anymore, but he still wasn’t about to start knitting in the library, or his office, where anyone could walk in and see. It was private, something for him only, something that helped him work through his feelings. It came in handy most of the time these days, like when Clary Fray arrived and Jace became distracted, when Magnus Bane followed the arrival of Clary, when Alec proposed to Lydia—stupid, stupid, <i>stupid</i>—and it was like he couldn’t breathe.<p>In the early hours after patrols and paperwork and reprimanding subordinates, Alec retreated to his room, drew a locking rune on his door and tucked himself into the grey sweater he had finally managed to knit at the right size. The sleeves reached past the tips of his fingers but he didn’t mind because he could tuck his hands right inside if it was cold. </p>
<p>This particular night though, he gathered his supplies—tiny balls of wool, leftover from previous projects—shoved his sleeves up, and started knitting.</p>
<p>By sunrise, he had two small empty sacks shaped a bit like zucchinis and a larger empty sack shaped like an eggplant. He made a note to sneak off to a thrift shop or three in the next week or so to see if he could find something to stuff it with—he was making a doll.</p>
<p>(He was also, apparently, hungry).</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div>It took a few good months for Alec to warm up to Clary. They weren’t exactly friends or even friendly, but they could be in the same room together without arguing. Clary was now much more amenable to being trained by Alec—Jace was too distracting and went easy on her—and sparring allowed them both to release pent up frustration with each other on each other. It was a win-win situation: Clary got better at fighting, and Alec was a little less irritated.<p>Alec was in a particularly jovial mood today—for Alec that meant he was frowning less often—because he had mastered knitting lace the night before. As it turns out, putting holes in knitted fabric on purpose was much more tolerable than having them there by accident. And so when Clary started complaining about the lack of Christmas cheer in the Institute he just smiled and told her to keep punching the bag, <i>Fray</i>.</p>
<p>Two weeks later he had six knitted lace stars starched and threaded onto a piece of kitchen twine. It was easy to sneak into Clary’s (and Jace’s, let’s be honest) room to drape the garland of stars along her (their) bed’s headboard.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div>Just like archery, just like knitting, living with Magnus calmed his turbulent insides. Walking through the front door was like slowly sinking into a warm bath, stresses from the day just rolling off his shoulders and dissipating with the steam. Magnus’ magic had always comforted him, and it imbued everything in the loft. If Alec let his eyes un-focus, he could see the faint blue halo of Magnus’ magic permeating everything. If he ran his fingertips along a bookshelf, the magic would jump onto his arm and dance its way up to his shoulders and settle over him like a warm woollen blanket.<p>Alec didn’t have many possessions, but what he did own fit seamlessly into Magnus’ space to become theirs. A rack appeared one day just by the front door that his bow, quiver, and seraph blades just happened to fit perfectly into. An old-fashioned boot cleaning brush lived on the floor beside the rack, because Magnus would not have city dirt and demon ichor trailing through the place, thank you very much, and sometimes the manual way is just <i>better</i>, Alexander. </p>
<p>(Alec pretended not to notice the smoky blue magic polishing his boots once he’d taken them off). </p>
<p>Dinner tonight was a bit of a treat. Alec had arrived home early and decided to make <i>bakso</i> noodle soup from scratch, ready for when Magnus got back. It’s my <i>favourite</i>, Alexander. The rubberiness is part of its <i>charm</i>, Alexander, he said when Alec wrinkled his nose at it the first time they had it together. </p>
<p>Happy blue sparks tumbled from Magnus’ fingers around his fork and spoon as he grinned, delighted, mouth full of meatball.</p>
<p>After, as they sipped on glasses of Bordeaux malbec, Magnus pushed a brown paper package tied up with string toward Alec. Alec pulled at the string and the paper fell open to reveal a perfectly twisted skein of yarn, a label with faded ink reading <i>vicuña</i> in what he recognised as Magnus’ spidery calligraphy. </p>
<p>(From Peru—the first or second time I was there, I can’t quite remember—before I was banned, Alexander, <i>honestly</i>).</p>
<p>Alec undid the skein and rubbed the yarn on his cheeks, closing his eyes and smiling in bliss. It must be spun clouds from heaven itself, Alec was sure of it. He opened his eyes to see Magnus snap his fingers in a shower of sparks and his sampler blanket and a lopsided multicoloured doll appeared on the coffee table in front of them. He quirked an eyebrow.</p>
<p>Magnus unfolded the blanket and laid it reverently across their laps. <i>Your Nephilim magic shines gold, Alexander, and everything you’ve made is blinding.</i></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm definitely overthinking these prompts but it's fun.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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